Lights with internal batteries

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You may find yourself in situations where you either are in a room with not many wall outlets, are part of a fast moving production where you do not have easy access to power, or you are in a remote location. How do you power up your lights? In this episode, author Richard Harrington and guest Kevin Bradley discuss a solution where you use lights that have internal batteries.

- One of the simplest solutions on the marketis to get consumer grade or prosumer grade lightingthat has internal batteries.And a lot of times,these are very simple.Kevin, one of the ones here,this is sort of a semi-professional type.Just runs off of standard batteriesyou can get at a gas station.- Yeah and you know way back in the day,Light Panels was the company that reallystarted this revolution.And this was really one of their first products,was this little LED on-camera light.I guess you would call it an on-camera light.But it actually can be used for a little bit of fill light.

Best thing about this is you don't needsome proprietary battery.It just uses normal AA batteries.Which you can find anywhere in the world.- Yeah, I mean if you have to stop at the gas station,you've got power.You can get these.If you've lost luggage,you can get power.What I like about this,and these come in a wide rangeof price points and manufacturers,is that the good ones,as you turn that on,even at a lower intensity there,they're not gonna flicker.If you get a cheaper one and you don'thave it at full intensity,they tend to flicker or strobe on camera.

So these are one of those things.And I would put this in semi-professional.You know this is not a cheap unit.But this certainly is really affordable.- [Kevin] And it's made out of plastic.- Yeah, so plastic is plastic.And another light that's made out of plastic,I actually use these a lot in my time lapse work.This is just an oxy LED,there's tons of brands but you know,it's got built-in.And I would use this more as a working light on set.As a simple filling in thing.So a crew light.A lot of times we have night time shootsand we need to clean up.Or I've used them with time lapse projectsto light up large areas.

But what I also like is,you could wrap a gel around this,and just throw it in the background,and now you've got an instant back light.- Yeah and you know the other thing I like about this,as opposed to a flashlight in my gear bag,is if you have a color temperature accurate light,you can actually use this in a pinch if you had to.If you had to add one morelittle sparkle of light in the background.And you're out of options because you'reout of your big lights.You could throw one of these back there andit's accurate enough that you can get away with it.- Yeah and what I like too is that it's directional.

So with one side shielded it's easy toput it in the background to fill things in.I just keep five or six of these in my camera bag,and use them as emergency fill-in lights.Or if shooting in an automobile,to bring up the ambient light level.You can literally put these right on the floor in the car,and just bring up the light level inside.Now that's great and we are seeing new classes.I know you've played with these.We've used these on a few shoots.This is from a company called Lume Cube.And it works,and it actually has a Bluetooth receiver,so you can adjust the intensity of theseusing a smart phone.

- Yep, wirelessly.And you know I've actually used theseon a real shoot before.And you know the thing about them is,is they're really, really bright.And they also last a decent amount of time.I believe they run for about 25 minutes on full intensity.Which is pretty good.- [Host] For that size.- [Kevin] For this size.And you know the amount of light they put out is incredible.I've actually used them I think on a sports shoot.And I immediately went out andpurchased three of them that day,so, they're really, really good.- What I like is,is if you don't run it on full power,like most of these lights,the battery time is significant.

Now this particular one has one additional unique benefit.And that is, this is waterproof.So if you need to take it under water,or you're shooting outdoors in the rain,well I'm little nervous aboutrunning electrical cords in a wet environment.But if I just need to bring up the lighting levelsfor a quick outdoor shoot,the fact that I can set this on the ground in the mud,and it's going to put out light,and I don't have to worry about anything,metal case, it's great.So I think having a collection of these thingsin your tool bag,in your lighting kit,I just toss a couple in my camera bag.

You have some emergency lights right?- Yeah absolutely.- So things like this just mean that if youhit a brick wall,it's a way around it.So that if you have a power problem,you blow a fuse and you have to keep shooting,well you can figure out a quick solution.And small lights like this go a long way.But we do have professional lightsthat I want to take a look at next.And these are basically full quality pro lights,but we use a pro battery right?- Exactly.

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Author

Updated

12/2/2016

Released

4/15/2016

From the guys who brought you Video Gear Weekly comes Video Production and Post Tip of the Week! In this weekly series, Rich Harrington and Robbie Carman answer common video production and post-production questions, explore gear, and demonstrate useful techniques. As you've come to expect, they keep both cost and quality in mind. Get practical. Get hands-on. Get tips every week.

Rich and Robbie explore the latest in video technologies, compatible gear, and how to adjust camera settings to capture images using new perspectives, new resolutions, and new speeds. They provide gear suggestions, with options that meet different budget ranges, and they demonstrate how to implement techniques to solve problems.